george knysh wrote:
> *****GK: I suggest you get the book and react to its
> evidence. If you're not interested in doing this,
> there's not much point in continuing.*****
Well, one thing you could do before I arrange an interlibrary loan would
be to summarise briefly the nature of the evidence, and in particular
the arguments in favour of *a: retaining its length in Steppe Iranian at
the beginning of the first millennium. I often do so myself for the
benefit of other list members if the literature in question might be
hard to get. If there is no such evidence, arguing _ab auctoritate_
won't help. I haven't read the Stryzhak collection you referred to, but
I have read other stuff; in particular, I'm familiar with Trubachev's
and Lehr-Splawinski's toponymic studies, for example. Some of what they
wrote is splendid and has stood the test of time, but there are also
so-so stories and etymological castles built on sand.
> *****GK: Why not? The proto-Slavs were part of the
> classical Scythian realm. Why would they have
> waited?******
To tell the truth, I don't know if they were part of it, though of
course they were strongly influenced by the culture of Iranian-speakers
(lateral contact rather than full immersion in the Scythian empire would
have been enough, I suppose). But even if the contact was very intimate,
it doesn't follow that the name "Don", for example, goes back to a
Scythian past. river-names can change, and can be borrowed and
re-borrowed easily in an ethnically unstable area (which the steppe zone
was during and after the Great Migrations). The Slavs probably had their
own name (or names) for the Dniester (or parts of it course) before a
borrowed name became accepted with reference to the whole river.
> ******GK: Look here, Piotr, my good fellow. You're an
> impressive linguist, and I respect your expertise
> greatly. I've profited from it in the past and am
> grateful. But when you utter sillinesses like the
> above, it just won't wash.
Questioning the reality of a "hydronymic substrate" identified on slim
evidence is caution, not silliness. Being a linguist I know how easy it
is to interpret vague data in a way that appeals to our wishful thinking
(like those channels on Mars). What's worse, a scholar who "discovers"
such a substrate may get emotionally attached to his own invention and
his etymologies become more and more tendentious as a result, see
Vennemann's Bascoid etymologies for almost everything in Northern Europe.
> I don't know what you have
> against Ukrainian linguistic literature, but why not
> get over it? They have some pretty good people, and to
> ignore them as thoroughly as you seem prepared to is
> not very commendable.
Look here, George, my good fellow ;). How can an active Ukrainophile
such as me react to this? Why say such unpleasant things when the only
problem is that I haven't the book to hand? To be honest, whenever I
open an article by a _Polish_ (or German, British, Italian...)
hydronymist, I usually learn a lot from it but also find myself in
disagreement with most of the content. Nobody is omniscient, and the
authors are often unaware of something which I happen to know and which
happens to matter.
> Why not get Stryzhak via
> inter-library loan? Or read Zhelezhniak's study of the
> Ros' basin hydronyms for starters? That might change
> your strange reluctance to keep an open mind about the
> Thrakoid language of West Scythia. I'll stop now, and
> resume (if need be) after you've read some of this
> literature (Stryzhak has an excellent
> bibliography).******
OK, we may postpone it, but let me assure you first that I have never
meant any disrespect to you or your sources. I only asked for arguments
and you told me to read the book.
Piotr